Saket Court in Delhi has handed down life imprisonment to four individuals convicted in the murder case of journalist Soumya Vishwanathan, nearly 15 years after the incident occurred in the national capital. The fifth convict received a sentence corresponding to the time already served in jail.
Additionally, fines of Rs 25,000 each and Rs 1 lakh each under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were imposed on the four accused, namely Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Balbir Malik, and Ajay Kumar. The fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, was fined Rs 7.5 lakh.
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The court directed that Rs 1.2 lakh from the fines imposed on the four convicts be allocated to Soumya Vishwanathan’s parents, while Rs 7.2 lakh out of Ajay Sethi’s Rs 7.25 lakh fine should be released to the family. The court, citing that the actions of the four convicts did not qualify as the ‘rarest of rare’ category, concluded that death penalty cannot be imposed.
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